site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Why can't the definition be self-referential? You keep saying it can't, but you haven't actually said why this is a problem!

Because it literally doesn't mean anything. When people ask for your definition of woman you're functionally just making animal noises and then acting surprised that people say you don't have one.

You genuinely don't have one. You've said as much. You've compared the word to proper nouns that convey no attributes. When someone says you can't define the word woman you should just tell them they're right and that you think that's okay. Maybe you don't want to come off as some kind of crazy gender abolitionist, but that's the bed you've made for yourself by refusing to assign any traits to them.

And when everyone rolls their eyes at your personal rendition of "words don't have to have meanings" and considers the meme lived up to, that's your problem too.

Talk of tides all you want, I don't think cruelty will ultimately prevail. I've got more faith in human nature than that.

Even a substantial majority of Dem voters don't want them in the women's locker room, and since the election the leadership has started to catch on that this isn't a winning issue. The progressive lock on the internet that let them get this far in the first place was an aberration that has now ended.